Here’s the thing you need to know about Pinterest:
It is not a social media platform. It’s in an entirely different category than Twitter or Facebook.
Everyone who visits Pinterest is looking for value, something that will help them improve their life. Users come to Pinterest to find business or blogging tips, to find a haircut inspiration, to find ways to deal with stress or anxiety, to learn about self-improvement, to find recipes, makeup tutorials, and reviews.
So, no. Pinterest is no longer a place where you’d only go if you were looking for a DIY project or wedding inspiration. AND, men are actually on there, too. This means that it doesn’t matter what kind of niche you’re in- Pinterest can help you find that perfect audience.
Yes. People come to Pinterest to find ideas or inspiration.
You have to think of Pinterest as a visual search engine.
What do search engines love?
SEO.
PINTEREST SEO
When you log in to your Pinterest account, the pins you see no longer show up in a chronological order. Pinterest now has a smart feed, which uses its algorithm to figure out the kind of content that each user is interested in, and displays most relevant pins first.
This means that each user not only sees pins from people they follow, but they also see related pins and interest pins. That gives you an opportunity to get your pins and your content in front of people who don’t already follow you.
To take advantage of the smart feed, you have to utilize SEO. This includes things like:
- Your image names– they should always include one or more keywords relating to your post
- Your profile– use keywords there, too
- Your boards– make sure that each board is assigned a category, use keywords in the board description
- Your pin descriptions– make sure that they’re keyword-rich
- Your website– make sure it’s verified + sign up for rich pins
These are all things you need to keep in mind. If you’re just starting out, it can seem a little overwhelming at first. BUT, once you optimize your profile and boards and get in the habit of implementing SEO, it’ll take you about an hour a week to run your Pinterest account. But more about that later.
PIN FOR YOUR AUDIENCE, NOT YOURSELF
If you’re using Pinterest as a business or blog marketing tool, you have to pin content that will attract your target audience. Most people use Pinterest for finding DIY projects or recipe ideas; but if you’re a food blogger and post plant-based recipes for example, but constantly pin pictures of cute dogs, your targeted audience (or people who you want to get to visit your blog, turn into subscribers, get to buy your products) will never see your pins. You have to stay within your niche. There are some bloggers with hundreds of thousands of followers on Pinterest, who can’t drive any traffic to their blog despite those numbers, and that’s because they don’t stay within their niche.
Think about it.
IF all you pin are fashion-related pins, then chances are most of your followers are following you because they’re interested in fashion. BUT, if you’re also a food blogger, don’t be surprised if pins from your own blog don’t do well. Someone who followed you because of your fashion boards, might not be interested in your recipes. This is why it’s so important that you curate your boards to attract that perfect audience- people who are interested in the same things you blog about.
Since the new smart feed doesn’t display pins in a chronological order, it’s very important that you pay special attention to your pins and boards. Don’t just pin for the sake of pinning. You want to pin quality content and stay within your niche. The smart feed uses its algorithm to estimate how valuable each pin is to a user. To do that, the algorithm takes many things into consideration, including both pin AND pinner quality. So, if you blog about beauty and have a lot of high-quality beauty boards with high-quality pins, the smart feed will be more likely to display your pins to people who are interested in beauty. That also means displaying pins from your blog.
Pinterest can help you find that ideal audience- you just need to let the algorithm know that you’re a high-quality pinner with a specific niche.
EXPERIMENT WITH YOUR IMAGES
It’s hard to get it right the first time, which is why if you’re just getting into Pinterest, you’ll have to experiment a bit with your images. As most of you will probably already know, vertical images do a lot better on Pinterest- and that’s because they stand out and appear larger in the feed. The ideal size of a Pinterest image is about 800 x 1200 pixels.
If you don’t like taking vertical images or they don’t really fit in with your blog, you can combine two horizontal images to create a Pinterest-friendly version.
Here’s an example of how combining two images can work.
Adding text overlay is another must. Pinterest is a visual search engine, so the first thing that people look at when scrolling through their feed is the pin/image itself.
Here’s the thing:
No one really takes their time to actually read the pin description.
BUT if your image has a large, easy to read text overlay, it will immediately let the user know what your pin/blog post is about and how it can help them.
Other than your text being easy to read, you’ll also need to stay consistent with on brand colors and fonts. This is where you’ll have to experiment a bit, see which color/font combos work best for your blog. I wouldn’t try to use too many fonts or colors and only stick to two fonts and a handful of colors. This is because you want people to immediately recognize the pins as yours, so staying on-brand is important.
If you’re just starting out, experiment a bit, see which images do better until you find a style that works best for you. You can even create multiple Pinterest images for one post, hide them within the post and see which ones get the most repins.
SCHEDULE YOUR PINS
Scheduling my pins to post automatically has changed everything for me. I only spend about 30 minutes to 1 hour a week working on my Pinterest, I schedule my pins and focus on creating content. I still like to pin organically a few times a day, but I love knowing that even if I’m busy, my Pinterest account is till working for me.
I talk about Tailwind all the time in my Pinterest-related post and it’s been a game-changer.
I grew my Pinterest account to over 22,000 followers within a year and a half and Pinterest is my #1 referral beating Google, and it’s all thanks to Tailwind. I already talked about Tailwind in a few of my other post, you can read about it in more detail right here.
A few final words for beginners: I think it is quite obvious, but I’ll mention it anyway: don’t only pin your own content. You don’t want to have a Pinterest profile and boards that are filled with nothing else but pins from you blog. What you do want, is to create a board with pins only from your blog and make that particular board appear at the very top of your profile. Don’t forget to pin other quality content from your niche- remember that more quality content you pin, more users will see your pins.
Another quick tip: if you don’t have a whole lot of posts on your blog, create multiple Pinterest images for each post, tweak the caption/text on your image a little and pin it to multiple boards. This is a great way to get your content seen, without pinning the same image over and over again.
As a blogger or an online business or shop owner, it’s so hard to be everywhere- unless you have unlimited time and resources, which, I know not a lot of us do. This is why you need to focus on what works for you. I know I’ll never love Twitter or Facebook even though it works great for other bloggers. Instagram is one of my favorite platforms, but with constant changes to its algorithm, I just don’t have the time to spend hours a day, trying to figure out how to beat it.
This is why I love Pinterest– because it gets results and by automating it, I can focus on doing what I love most: creating content. Keep in mind that numbers of followers don’t matter, unless they actually engage, connect with you, visit your blog and are interested in what you have to offer.
Want to launch your own WordPress blog and start earning money? Check out my step-by-step guide to starting a blog right here + a list of all my blog resources, including my favorite affiliate marketing programs, right here.
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